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parallelVerse INT GEN EXO LEV NUM DEU JOB JOS JDG RUTH 1SA 2SA PSA AMOS HOS 1KI 2KI 1CH 2CH PRO ECC SNG JOEL MIC ISA ZEP HAB JER LAM YNA NAH OBA DAN EZE EZRA EST NEH HAG ZEC MAL YHN MARK MAT LUKE ACTs YAC GAL 1TH 2TH 1COR 2COR ROM COL PHM EPH PHP 1TIM TIT 1PET 2PET 2TIM HEB YUD 1YHN 2YHN 3YHN REV
Ezra Intro C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10
Ezra 9 V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11 V12 V13 V14 V15
Note: This view shows ‘verses’ which are not natural language units and hence sometimes only part of a sentence will be visible. Normally the OET discourages the reading of individual ‘verses’, but this view is only designed for doing comparisons of different translations. Click on any Bible version abbreviation down the left-hand side to see the verse in more of its context. The OET segments on this page are still very early looks into the unfinished texts of the Open English Translation of the Bible. Please double-check these texts in advance before using in public.
(All still tentative.)
OEB No OEB EZRA book available
Moff No Moff EZRA book available
KJB-1611 1 Ezra mourneth for the affinitie of the people with strangers. 5 He prayeth vnto God with confession of sinnes.
(1 Ezra mourneth for the affinity of the people with strangers. 5 He prayeth unto God with confession of sins.)
Intermarriage and Divorce
God had warned his people not to intermarry with unbelieving foreigners (Deut 7:1-6). The sin was not that they married people from another country or race but that they married people committed to other gods. Moses had married a Cushite woman (Num 12:1), and other foreigners had joined Israel through marriage, notably Rahab the Canaanite (see Matt 1:5) and Ruth the Moabite (Ruth 4:1-22). These women embraced faith in the Lord, and they were blessed. On the other hand, Solomon had taken many foreign wives, and their devotion to other gods led him into idolatry, just as the Lord had warned (1 Kgs 11:1-5).
The marriage covenant is sacred, but it was even more important for Israel to remain faithful to the Lord’s covenant with them as a people. Mixed marriages would produce children who were not fully committed to Israel’s faith, having been influenced by their foreign parent’s idolatrous beliefs. This compromise would lead Israel back to where they were before the Exile—to wholesale unfaithfulness to God and a wholehearted embrace of false religions (see Judg 3:3-7; 14:1-9; 1 Kgs 11:1-8; 2 Kgs 17:7-17).
In Ezra 9 and 10, the Jews who had returned from exile had married people who served other gods. Ezra’s solution (divorce) is not prescriptive for believers today. In the new covenant under Christ, the faith of a believer sanctifies his or her marriage and children, so marriage to an unbeliever does not threaten the identity or purity of the community of God’s people (1 Cor 7:14-16). The apostle Paul realized that divorce might occur when believers and unbelievers married, but he did not encourage believers in that situation to seek a divorce (1 Cor 7:10-13). Certainly, the wise policy to avoid these problems is to heed Paul’s advice not to marry an unbeliever in the first place. God’s people need to remain separated from what is unholy: “How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever?” (2 Cor 6:14-15). But those who are married to an unbeliever today have God’s assurance that he can use that difficult situation for his glory (see also 1 Pet 3:1-2).
Passages for Further Study
Deut 7:1-6; Josh 2:1-14; 6:23-25; Judg 3:3-7; 14:1-9; Ruth 4:1-22; 1 Kgs 11:1-8; 2 Kgs 17:7-17; Ezra 9:1–10:44; 1 Cor 7:10-16; 2 Cor 6:14-15; Heb 11:31
When Ezra found out that many Jews who had returned from exile had married Gentile wives, he prayed to God and confessed this sin of his people. He acknowledged that God had been good to them much more than they deserved by letting these few people return from captivity and then they sinned by marrying Gentile wives. The Jewish people had done this before and God had punished them for it. God forbade this type of marriage because it caused the people to worship other gods. (See: sin and falsegod)
Ezra uses many first person plural pronouns as he prays to God. Since Ezra is speaking to God, these forms of “we,” “us,” and “our” would all be the exclusive forms. (See: figs-exclusive)